I Pit my Clumsiness (& resulting injury)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The only reason I put this here and not MPSIMS is that I’m likely to use offensive language.

I’m sitting here at my keyboard, trying with marginal success (dammit!) to type with one hand. (Shit, this is tedious). :frowning:

On Monday night, I was going up the wooden stairs into my mobile home (Is ‘Doper Trailer Trash’ an oxymoron?), carrying some stuff in from the car. Somehow I lost my balance and fell, not down the stairs, but over the side, landing on a concrete patio about 3 feet below. :eek:

Reflexes being what they are, I caught myself before sustaining a fatal head or spinal cord injury - but, reflexes being what they are, I did this by catching all of my not-inconsiderable weight (from that height) on the heel of my outstretched right hand. Damn, that hurt! I literally saw stars, and was in early stages of shock by the time my dear husband-person got me to the emergency -room (not 10 minutes later, truly!) :eek: :eek:

Long and short of it is this: ER could immediately tell that the radius was broken beyond their ability to set, so they just splinted it, and gave me Vicodin, the xray films and orders to see an orthopedic surgeon ASAP. I went to the orthopedist on Tuesday afternoon - he look one look at the xray and determined that I had a “comminuted distal fracture of the radius,” and that I’d need surgery to place an “external fixation device.” After another day and night in a fog of excruciating pain dulled only slightly by narcotics, I had the surgery. I am happy to say that it went well, and my arm should heal properly with no loss of function. The only other consolation is that I’m left-handed, so at least I fucked up the non-dominant one!

Which doesn’t change the fact that, for the next 6 weeks I have this…scaffold?..armature?..buttress?..thing!! sticking out of my arm, held there by titanium pins in my hand and upper forearm. There are bolts stickin’ out for Pete’s sake! It’s gross!

It’s also humiliating. I can’t dress myself. I can barely type. My husband has to cut my meat, fasten my bra, open and close the car-door. Wiping my ass is a major production. And I can’t stop blaming myself, because if I weren’t so big and awkward and clumsy, this wouldn’t have happened. God, this sucks (God, this rant is lame!!

The real irony? Two days earlier we’d signed a contract and made a deposit on our first, built-to-spec “real” house…with no stairs! :smack:

2

Congrats on the “real” house, and sympathies on the injury. Unfortunately for me, I know how awkward being temorarily single-handed actually is. Mine was back in a time & place when all the cool girls wore button-fly Levi’s, button-down shirts, and tie-up sneakers. :mad: Manual transmission, too.

I can’t help with wiping your ass, but dressing yourself is easier – not easy, easier – if you can find an old-fashioned buttonhook. With the halo-thing, you’ll probably still need a lot of help, but be able to button your own shirt can help mend the tatters of your ego.

Opening car doors for you is Just Being Polite. Annoying at fisrt, but you can get used to it. Really.

Don’t you hate it when your well-meaning meal companion cuts your food into teeny tiny toddler-sized bites? I couldn’t complain (how ungrateful!), but I longed for a normal, polite, adult-sized bite of food.

You put this in the Pit, so I must be cruel at least once. :wink:
Your left shoulder blade itches, doesn’t it?

3

Moving thread to MPSIMS.

4

Ooo, ouch! I did much the same merely falling on ice in my driveway 5 weeks ago - again heel of the right hand (and yes I’m right-handed) but my rear took a considerable amount of the force as well. I got a non-displaced fracture of the distal right radius, and also walked around very stiffly for a few weeks because of the soft tissue damage in my hind end. Fortunately my break was pretty simple, so I just got the cast off and am in a splint and doing physical therapy - 3 formal sessions a week plus 4-6 sessions a day on my own.

I wasn’t able to tolerate the pain medication I was given, so I ended up having to just take some Aleve or cope. Hopefully your meds are kinder to you.

Can you do any light work with your fingers, or do you know when you can? I was lucky and was allowed to gently write and type after being put in the cast, but nothing else really.

5

To give you a story of “it coulda been worse:”

My son at 13 yrs of age, decided he was 10 feet tall and bullet-proof. He rode his bicycle down a (very tall) dirt hill near our house, and wiped out on a concrete culvert, breaking both wrists and smashing 4 teeth out of his beautiful face.

He was in two casts above the elbows for 6 weeks. Mommy had to feed him, bathe him and wipe his butt for six weeks.

I know it sucks, but be grateful you don’t have to have someone else wipe your butt.

(He’s 23 now, and does not like to be reminded of that time.)

6

Ouch. I hope you heal fast and get good drugs for the pain.

I too can be clumsy. Several years ago I was visiting an old friend. We had spent the night and were sort of just hanging out in the back yard. She was watering her garden and splashed some water my way. I got up to chase her and she ran in the house. I followed but in my haste to get at her I opened the screen door and hit myself in the face with it so hard I knocked myself out and fell in their flower bushes.

Nothing broken but my pride. I was not out more than 10 seconds or so. Had quite a few brusies and some pretty bad scrapes.

They will never let me live it down. “Hey Jack remember that time Tina knocked her self out with the screen door?” Oh yeah HAHAHAHAHA! Her boyfriend also likes to remind me that he just planted those flowers the week before.

7

Not nearly as major, but…

Two years or so ago, I broke the middle toe on my left foot by stubbing it on a chair. It’s always been a little sensitive since then, but healed up relatively quickly.

Yesterday, I was out shopping for a party (for Himself’s work) that we had to go to last night. In the changing room, I accidentally kicked the chair with my left foot and almost immediately felt excruciating pain…so I figured I had either bruised or broken that middle toe again.

Nope, it’s the one NEXT to it. sigh So I’m getting ready to truck over to the local “doc in a box” to get it looked at and see if I can get a cast shoe. See, I threw out the last cast shoe several months ago “because that will never happen to me again”.

:rolleyes:

I think I need to increase my calcium intake.

8

When I tried to saw my knee by accident instead of the tree (the chainsaw kicked back into my knee) I had a removeable cast on my right leg. Dressing was a chore, but pooping was teh funnest. Try doing that with an outstretched leg. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the wrong position. I also feel for you in regards to the “wiping”. If I wasn’t in so much pain, it would have been really funny. Again, with the outstretched leg, things weren’t in the correct, err, position to easily perform this function.

9

Yes, for many Dopers have done the trailer thing, and nearly most of them are not trash.

Sorry you got hurt. Thank goodness at least that you’re a lefty, and used to the whole world being against you… :wink:

10

those “external fixation devices” should have a pit thread of their own. those things no matter what appendage they are on, are the most awful things to live with. just a wee bump and you are in unbelievable pain. a big bump… don’t even think about it! the turning, the swabbing so you don’t stick to it!! oy!

thankfully i haven’t had one. my mum had one on her knee. the knee replacement that she finally had to have was way, way, easier than the “lazaroff frame”,